World

Democracy faced sharp, widespread setbacks worldwide in 2023 with violence and manipulation marring a series of elections, Freedom House said Thursday.

In its annual report, the US-funded pro-democracy advocacy and research group switched classifications for two countries, downgrading Ecuador from free to partly free and upgrading Thailand from not free to partly free.

At least 17 people died when two buses collided Wednesday in northwestern Honduras, firefighters said.

The crash happened at dawn on a curvy, mountainous road with a single lane in each direction. Another 12 people were injured.

Prince Harry lost a court challenge against the U.K. government on Wednesday over a decision to change the level of his personal security when he visits the country.

The youngest son of King Charles III launched legal action against the government after being told in February 2020 that he would no longer be given the "same degree" of publicly-funded protection when in Britain.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's funeral service will be held at a church in southern Moscow on Friday, allies of the politician said.

Authorities finally handed Navalny's body to his mother on Saturday, more than a week after he died in an Arctic prison, in what his allies said was an attempt to stall a public burial.

In a new comedy film that challenges Ukraine's lingering homophobia, an activist reassures a bewildered family hosting him, saying: "I'm gay, not a Martian."

The film, "Lessons in Tolerance", shows what happens when a family with knee-jerk anti-gay views agrees to take part in a government program for European integration.

Southern Vietnam, including business hub Ho Chi Minh City and its "rice bowl" Mekong Delta region, suffered an unusually long heatwave in February, weather officials said Wednesday.

Several areas of the delta are also suffering drought and farmers are struggling to transport their crops due to low water levels in the region's canals.

One considers itself to be "the mother" of democratic parliaments, the other is an Islamic theocracy. While Britain's and Iran's legislatures are vastly different, they do share something in common: clerics.

Twenty-six Church of England bishops and archbishops automatically sit in the House of Lords, the United Kingdom's unelected upper chamber, a centuries-old right that angers democracy campaigners and secularists.

NBC News reporter Vaughn Hillyard spent several months traveling the country asking fans of former President Donald Trump their attitudes and views, and the results, according to MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, were shocking.

Wallace began their interview Tuesday segment by citing lawyer and Howard University Civil Rights chair Sherrilyn Ifill, who argued that autocracy is contagious.

French President Emmanuel Macron faced uneasy reactions from European allies and a warning from the Kremlin on Tuesday after he refused to rule out the dispatch of Western ground troops to Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion.

Macron said after a conference of European leaders on Monday that "everything that is necessary" must be done to ensure the defeat of Russia, including deploying troops.

Britain's Prince William, whose wife Catherine is recovering from surgery and father King Charles III is undergoing cancer treatment, on Tuesday pulled out of attending a memorial service, citing a "personal matter".

William's Kensington Palace office declined to elaborate but said Catherine, the Princess of Wales, continued to be "doing well".

An extra day every four years, what's not to love?

The calendar quirk of February 29 keeps us in sync with the seasons but it has also spawned a host of rituals and superstitions, not to mention computer glitches, which AFP unpacks here: